Click on following links for earlier articles: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8.
How to be a Radical Christian. (iv)
Would you have liked to travel along with the Apostle Paul on one of his journeys? Consider Silas’ experience in Acts 16: 11-40.
In the city of Philippi, Paul and Silas are doing some street ministry. Paul casts a spirit of divination out of a slave girl. Instead of being thankful for the girl’s deliverance, the owners are enraged and stir up the crowd against the two men.
Next, the city magistrates step into the melee, rip the clothes off the two, beat them with cudgels, scourge them with a whip, toss them into prison, and fasten their feet into stocks so that they can’t move.
Then, somehow, at midnight, Paul and Silas began praying and singing hymns. The power of God hits the place. Cell doors were opened. The jailer’s life was spared. The jailer’s household was saved. Paul and Silas were washed and fed. And then, returned to prison.
The next morning, the magistrates send some go-fors to release Paul and Silas from their cells. But what does Paul do? He says, “No way, Jose! We ain’t leaving this dandy place until the men responsible for putting us here come and say, ‘Pretty please with chocolate syrup all over it.’ Don’t even try to make us go. We ain’t moving!”
What do you think was going through Silas’ mind? He was bloody. He was sore. He was stiff. He was tired. And he might have been thinking something like this: “Paul is a radical nut! How can he possibly believe that those men will come here and beg us to leave?”
How? Paul had radical faith in God.
And radical Christians need this same type of faith to oppose Islamic terrorists.
But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Larry Who 